SSAW Collective Campaign Winter 2023

SSAW Collective ‘Why buy roses in February’ Campaign 2023

At the end of last year when very few flowers were visible and the world underfoot was dormant, I worked with SSAW Collective to produce a poster for their 2023 Winter campaign ‘Why Buy Roses in February’. Inspired by the delicate watercolours of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Art Nouveau period I wanted to highlight the choice of flowers that are growing naturally at this time of year in the UK.
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The campaign was created to highlight the environmental toll that the floristry industry can have on the planet and how by changing our ways of growing and our buying habits we can in fact have beautiful seasonal, locally grown flowers at times such as Valentines Day that support the natural world, not deplete it.
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Hellebores, snowdrops, paper whites, cyclamen, primroses, to name a few are all flowers that grow naturally at this time of year in the UK. They are however often overlooked for the more traditional flower of choice, the red rose.
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Although they can now be grown all year round, the natural conditions for roses to grow eternally do not exist in the UK. In the weeks leading up to Valentines Day in 2022, auction house Royal Flora Holland alone sold 152 million roses. In order to meet this demand, locations are chosen for their optimal climates and then suitable environments are artificially created through temperature regulated greenhouses and chemicals often at great expense of the local environs with pesticide run off an high water and energy usage.
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For more information on the campaign and the flower growing industry read the SSAW teams journal piece on their site here: https://www.ssawcollective.com/post/why-buy-roses-in-february#:~:text=In%20the%20British%20gardening%20calendar,a%20vase%20in%20your%20house.